Salt Lake Tribune: Utah Election Reformers Pull back From 2012 Target

Added Bonus: Year end greetings and and a status update from our friends at Utahns for Ethical Government

Late last month we breathlessly linked this Bob Bernick story and reported that "there's now a movement afoot to alter the rules regarding the nomination process in Utah, a movement which would avoid the predictable intransigence of the Utah Legislature altogether, and bring Utah into conformity with other "caucus/primary" nomination states through a more "grass roots" oriented means."

According to this morning's hot-off-the-press Salt Lake Tribune story, our enthusiasm may have been a mite hasty, as the Trib is now reporting that the "push to change Utah’s nominating process... is being put on hold for now, but backers say it could be back in 2014.":

• Utah election reformers pull back from 2012 target

The University of Utah's Kirk Jowers, provides the gist:

Kirk Jowers, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah, said his group remains convinced that something needs to be done to boost Utah’s voter participation, and that changing Utah’s unique convention system for nominating candidates could do that.

But looming deadlines and tough standards to get on the ballot make it difficult to get the ballot initiative before voters in the coming election year.

“It seems the most prudent course is to give ourselves enough time to see if the Legislature can take some actions to help our state get back to where it should be” in terms of voter participation, Jowers said. “If not, we’ll obviously keep all options open for 2014.”

As we said in out earlier article on this topic, "We'll be standing by. This one will be fun [and interesting] to watch."

Added Bonus: And speaking of citizen-driven ballot measures, here's a link from our friends at Utahns for Ethical Government, the last grassroots group to successfully engineer a statewide citizen initiative petition drive to place grass-roots oriented legislation on Utah ballots:

• Holiday Wishes and Year-End UEG Update

Gotta add that we're pleased to observe that the folks at UEG and Jowers' Alliance for Good Government organization seem to be cooperatively pulling in tandem.